The van arrived, as promised, at four p.m. just as
Carla was finishing her bus route. As she wobbled off
the bus, her purse clutched close for balance, she
frowned with her eyes and smiled with her mouth at the
strangers in the yard. Sensing her unease, the camera
crew fussed with their equipment while the Jim, the
announcer, approached her.

“Oh no, we’ve got another nervous one,” a sound tech
said. “And she looks like she might be packing.” One
of the grips snickered, but ducked his head in shame
at the word “packing.”

The camera crew considered Jim a pampered fool with
his makeup and Whitestrips, but he was good at calming
the older women. They watched him approach the bus
driver with his head cocked, grinning like they were
old friends.

He managed to both whisper and project simultaneously.
“You’ve won something. I know these are always
supposed to be a surprise, but it’s all right if you
wanted to go inside and freshen up? It’ll be our
little secret.”
The wink that followed seem more a tic than a gesture.

She patted her hair at the question. Her ‘do was still
aloft in a brunette meringue, only a tad wilted near
her damp temples. She whispered to match his voice and
placed a hot hand on his shoulder.

“I could use a little pit stop…and some lipstick.”
Her knees had not warmed up yet so when she tried to
hurry toward the house, she moved like a filmstrip
missing frames. Without turning her head she gave a
field holler to everyone.

“Y’all want something to drink?”

The crew congenially patted their coolers, while
wishing she’d just hurry up. The heat here was brutal.
How do people in the sticks of Arkansas even find out
about these contests? One of the grips asked that
aloud and his buddy knocked the back of his head like
it was a game show buzzer.

“Look at the state flower over there, idiot.” He
pointed to the outsized, dingy satellite dish tilted
up across the pasture into the bleached hot sky.

Carla emerged, freshly powdered and lipsticked and,
the announcer noted with a mix of embarrassment and
tenderness, a new blast of cologne.

She huddled with Jim again, then remounted the bus
steps with her broad purse. She waited for a hand
signal from Camera One. I have seen the rest.

As my mama wobbled off the bus, her purse clutched
close for balance, she frowned with her eyes and
smiled with her mouth at the strangers in the yard.

The announcer walked up with a cardboard check and
balloons. She was already covering her mouth and
squealing. Perfect, pageant-like tears trembled in her
eyes.

“Carla Edgars, you have just won the Bookmakers
Sweepstakes!”